Drake's Lair (17 page)

She stared down at the broken jar on the floor. The spilt balm was streaked with blood where the earl’s feet had been cut by the broken glass. He hadn’t even seemed to notice crashing out of the cellar, though he’d left blood-streaked footprints behind in the dust. Suppose he should return. That thought set her in motion, and she snatched up the marketing bag, stepped gingerly over the unconscious steward, and literally fled up the back stairs to the safety of her apartments.

Thirteen

Drake limped back to his rooms, where Griggs helped him into his dressing gown, and spent the better part of an hour picking glass shards out of his feet. Then leaving him with them soaking in a basin of salts and warm water, the valet shuffled off to his compartment in the vast adjoining dressing room, and returned with a jar of salve.

“What’s that?” said Drake, eyeing the dubious jar skeptically.

“‘Tis… a balm that will heal your cuts, my lord,” the valet replied haltingly, bending to dry Drake’s feet with a towel.

“What sort of balm?”

“Primarily chickweed and goldenseal, my lord. It’s very effective.”

“And, where did you get such a balm, from the apothecary?”

“N-no, my lord, ‘tis one of Miss Mell… Lady Ahern’s.”

Drake erupted in mad, bitter laughter that halted the valet, jar suspended.

“If you’d rather not, my lord…”

“No, no, by all means proceed,” Drake said with a defeated wave of his hand. “She’s bested me—had the last word after all—so be it! Slather the murderous stuff on and have done.”

“Y-yes, my lord.”

Placing Drake’s feet on a towel-draped footstool, the valet began massaging the balm into his cuts. In spite of himself, Drake groaned. The cool salve was soothing, and pleasant-smelling besides.
Zeus
! There was no hope for it. The little witch was still weaving her spell.

“Am I hurting you, my lord?” the valet queried.

“No, no, carry on,” he responded irritably.

“I think I’ve gotten all the glass, the bleeding has stopped at any rate,” the valet observed, scrutinizing his handiwork while he unrolled the gauze dressing. “Only two of the cuts are deep, my lord—this one on the side here, and the other on your heel. You’ll have to sleep in clean stockings tonight. Then we’ll see where we stand in the morning.”

“Whatever,” Drake said wearily. He didn’t imagine he would be getting much sleep.

“What has become of Mr. Ellery, my lord?” the valet queried, applying the dressing.

“He’s out cold in the wine cellar.”

“Shouldn’t we—”

“No,” Drake said unequivocally. “He’s so jug-bit, you’d have to carry his dead weight up three flights. He stays were he lays.”

“You’re sure he’s… breathing, my lord?”

“Reasonably. I really don’t care at this juncture.”

“S-shouldn’t I check… just to be sure, my lord?”

“Do as you please. You are supposed to be keeping tabs on the bastard after all. Just don’t disturb him. And if he should be conscious, there is to be no discourse. You don’t know what happened. Am I plain?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“It was another assignation,” he explained, since he’d given the valet scant information thus far. “She was there on pretext of collecting her specimens, when I interrupted her. She wasn’t dressed, Griggs, she was decked out in one of Eva’s old night costumes that I supplied—a particularly revealing one. She broke a jar when I surprised her, hence the glass.”

“I see,” said the valet.

“No you don’t, but you may as well have it all. I made a complete fool of myself if you must know. Then, when Jim arrived, I lost my temper and planted him a leveler.”

“And that’s when you stepped on the glass, my lord?”

“No, I did that making a fool of myself.” Drake responded angrily. It was embarrassing, but he did need to get it off his chest, and Griggs had always been his sounding board and father confessor in the past.

“Oh,” said the valet, swallowing audibly. “Are you sure it was an assignation, my lord, I’ve known Miss… Lady Ahern for some time, and she just doesn’t impress me as the type.”

“What else could it have been? She was half naked in that costume.” He shook his head adamantly. “No, Griggs, you’re forgetting Mr. Ellery’s charm. I’ve seen the most decorous of ladies succumb to his seductions.”

“She admitted it, then, did she?”

“Of course she didn’t admit it. But why else would she be down there at this hour dressed in that manner? She said she was collecting her specimens to pay her way elsewhere, since she’s leaving tomorrow. She could have done that fully dressed in the morning, old boy. No, she was waiting there for Jim.”

“Begging your pardon, but, do you have… feelings for her, my lord?”

“That doesn’t matter,” he growled. He wasn’t going to make a further fool of himself. Nothing was ever going to come of his feelings, why expose them to ridicule? “The only feelings I have at the moment are in these damnable feet,” he said. “I can get the stockings on by myself. Go and check on the Jack o’ napes if you must, and call it a night.”

“What about Lady Ahern, my lord? Shall I check on her as well?”

“No,” Drake snapped. “She won’t be having anymore assignations tonight. That, I can promise you.”

*

Drake ate his breakfast alone. Neither Demelza nor Ellery joined him. To his surprise, the wounds on his feet were much improved, though Griggs insisted upon repeating the treatment, and even coerced him to spend the day in his stocking feet and bedroom slippers, since he had nothing pressing that required his attention abroad. Ellery, he told him, had already vacated the wine cellar when he looked in that morning. His doctoring duties in Drake’s suite had prevented him from monitoring Demelza’s movements.

After breakfast, Drake limped off to the servant’ quarters in search of Mrs. Laity, prepared to end the meal with a healthy portion of humble pie. He found her red-eyed and sniffling in the servants’ hall, stacking the staff’s breakfast dishes for removal to the kitchen, and she quickly blocked the tower of plates with her bulk at sight of him advancing.

“Take ease, take ease, Mrs. Laity,” he said on a weary sigh, “I haven’t come to put us all in the workhouse over pottery. I give you my word, I shan’t break another dish.”

“Y-yes, m’lord,” she said skeptically.

“Sit down, if you please,” he said, “so I may sit. I’m not at my most powerful today I’m afraid.”

“I see you’re limping, m’lord,” she observed, sitting in the chair beside the dishes. “How have you hurt yourself?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he groaned in relief, with the weight off his feet as he joined her. “I’ll mend. I’ve come to tender my apologies to you, and to Cook, for my reprehensible behavior yesterday. I just want to reassure you that it shan’t be repeated.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“I shall, of course, replace everything I broke. You have only to supply me with an inventory, and I shall see to it at once. Meanwhile, feel free to make use of the upstairs dishes if I’ve left you short.”

“Yes, m’lord, she said through a sniffle, meanwhile wiping her nose on her handkerchief.

“You’ve been crying. What now?”

“She’s gone, m’lord—up and left without a word to anyone, with nothing in her stomach, and not a stitch to her name save the nightgown she come in, one of Ella’s old uniforms that she can’t wear no more since she put on two stone, and a pair of Morocco slippers what belonged to Lady Eva. All o’ the fine frocks we hemmed up for her are still hanging in her dressing room wardrobe.”

“What time did she leave?” he said, gravel-voiced, his chair creaking with the quick shift of weight as his posture clenched.

“I don’t rightly know exactly,” she replied, crying openly now. “She was gone when Zoe got up, and that was at first light. She must have left just before. Zoe is that distressed, losing her lofty new station as abigail. I can’t do nothing with her. She loved Miss Melly.”

“Are you saying Lady Ahern left before daylight?”

“She must have.”

“How?”

“I dunno’ m’lord. She must have just walked off. Nobody in the stables even knew she was gone when Smithers went up there to inquire.”

“Well, I expect it’s for the best,” he grumbled halfheartedly.

“Begging your pardon, my lord, but… you didn’t…”

“I didn’t what?” he demanded.

“S-s-scare her, like you done to Cook and me?” she stammered.

“Not nearly enough,” he said absently, thinking of the assignation then. “She doesn’t scare easily, Mrs. Laity,” he recovered. “I did try to put the fear of God into her over those damnable herbs, but the little witch gave as good as she got.”

“You was fair off your head you know, m’lord, I don’t need to tell you. We’re used to it down below stairs, but Miss Melly… she’s a gentle soul, and—”

“She’s a tigress,” he corrected. “And, believe me, I did her no harm—
I
am the wounded one if you notice.”

“Y-yes, m’lord. I just meant—”

“I know what you meant, Mrs. Laity. Let that be the end of the discussion. She is gone, so be it. Our bargain is sealed. I have paid her a royal sum for her useless land, and a work crew will commence raising a new cottage upon it before the sennight is out, which she may rent from me for a ridiculously low sum if she so chooses, or go to the devil if she doesn’t. She now has enough blunt to do as she pleases. Our business is concluded.”

“Y-yes, m’lord.”

“Now then, we shan’t broach this subject again. Tell Zoe that she may continue at lady’s maid wages. That should dry her tears. I shall go and have a word with Cook by way of apology. Then, I will be in the study for the remainder of the morning if anyone should inquire—locked in the study. I want you to pass the word. I do not wish to be disturbed. By anyone.”

*

Melly reached St. Kevern village just after daybreak. She passed through the grounds of Drake’s Lair without incident, but not before stopping along the way to add to the specimens in the marketing bag—one final gathering, and why not? It was the last she would get. Once she’d put Drake’s Lair behind her, it was over. She would never be returning.

She didn’t go to the Terrills. They would want to know why she had left the Lair so abruptly. It was too painful a subject of which to speak. She wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t tell tales to the earl’s tenants either under any circumstances.

Her first order of business was arranging for a safe place to keep her money. She could either approach the vicar, or Dr. Hale to help her with that. She chose the doctor, because the vicar would insist upon putting one of the trustees in charge of such a sum in her behalf, and she would not be managed. She was perfectly capable of taking charge of her own finances. She had done so quite successfully, until her father’s suicide encumbered her with the vowels and bills he’d kept from her that relieved her of them. The doctor would allow her the dignity to order her own affairs. With that decided, she went to his cottage straightaway.

“Is the man addled?” said Hale. They were seated in his study, the notes spread out upon his desk between them. “That sorry scrap of used-up land isn’t worth a quarter of this.”

“Oh, he is…aware of that,” said Melly awkwardly. The last thing she wanted was to go into detail, but she had to tell him something. “He insisted, Dr. Hale,” she went on, “it connects to his other properties, and there was nothing for it but to accept. What little I had put by went up in smoke when the cottage burned. I have nothing left, no home…not even a place to stay but with the Tinkers until I can sort it all out.”

“You’ve left Drake’s lair, then?”

Melly nodded, avoiding the doctors scrutinizing eyes. “I couldn’t stay on there indefinitely,” she said. “It would hardly be proper. His lordship plans to rebuild the cottage, and he’s given me an option to lease it once it’s ready, but that could take months, and I haven’t even decided if I will. I only need your help temporarily in these awkward circumstances. I have always managed my own affairs quite well, and I will do so again. Right now, I must be on my own to put my life in order, and get back to the work I love. I need peace of mind to do that, and it shan’t be had if I am to go about with such a sum on my person.”

“Ummm,” the doctor grunted. “Well, I will be happy to put your mind at ease and hold onto your funds for you, my dear, for however long you wish.” He shuffled the notes and handed several back to her across the desk. “You’ll need something to tide you over—for lodgings and necessities. As you well know, I am not always here. My work often keeps me away from home for days on end, and it wouldn’t do for you to be caught without a feather to fly with in one of my absences. Have you decided upon where you might seek accommodations— surely not out of the parish?”

“I thought I might apply at Maud Endean’s boarding house.”

The doctor wagged his head. “I have it on good authority that she is full-up until Thursday week,” he said. “I’ve just treated one of her boarders out there.”

“That will give me time to order myself, and buy some suitable clothes,” said Melly. She swatted at her wrinkled black twill skirt. “I wouldn’t think of applying as I am. I shall stay with the Tinkers meanwhile. I do not know how to thank you, Dr. Hale.”

“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “Just keep those preparations of yours in good supply, my dear. I couldn’t do without them.”

Melly parted with some of her roots and salves as a thank-you for the doctor’s help, since she now had the makings of more, and set out for the Tinkers camp.

She did not allow herself to think about what happened in the wine cellar. That would come later, when she was alone, when she could cry, or scream, or pound her pillow in anger—if indeed she had a pillow to pound. That remained to be seen until she finally reached the clearing and sighted the familiar wagons, colorfully painted in teal, bright yellow, and rose. Her heart leapt. Yes. Thank the stars. The Tinkers had returned.

*

“It is too much,” Rosen grunted, wagging her head as she looked over her yield.

“I am asking much,” Melly pointed out.

“You are asking nothing,” the Gypsy said flatly, “—a safe place to sleep, and food to eat—is
nothing
.” She picked a handful of the herbs that Melly had spread before her at random. “Is enough,” she said, laying them aside. She shoved the rest back toward her. “Now you tell Rosen why you leave the dragon’s house?”